Public office ban proposed for city workers
House bill would bar local government employees from running for elected posts
By Brendan O'Shaughnessy
brendan.oshaughnessy@indystar.com
Hoping to eliminate potential conflicts of interest, a lawmaker is pushing a bill this year that would bar local government workers from running for elected office where they can vote on their own pay and other matters that benefit them.
"The cost in public confidence is too great to have this continue," said first-year state Rep. Ed Delaney, an Indianapolis Democrat who authored the proposal. "I think we will get better candidates if people don't think government is an insider's club."
A review by The Indianapolis Star in December

found numerous examples across the state of police officers, firefighters and others who had won office and then voted to bump up their salaries -- often as part of across-the-board salary increases for government employees -- or benefited in some other way at taxpayer expense.
STICKY SITUATION:
In Indiana, city workers can OK their own raises.
A police officer, a firefighter, an employee in the county assessor's office and a city human resources worker currently hold seats on the Indianapolis City-County Council.
Gov. Mitch Daniels has asked lawmakers to take action on the issue this year. Letting local government employees become, essentially, their own boss is a "very bad idea," the governor said last month.
Delaney said he repeatedly heard complaints from voters while he was campaigning that they had grown tired of a system rife with potential conflicts of interest.
But municipal workers who serve on such councils -- including those on the City-County Council -- argued that government employees bring extensive first-hand knowledge to their elected roles.
"I think people bring some knowledge from their full-time employment," said Republican Lincoln Plowman, a major in the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. "I field lots of questions from other council members and constituents about police work, and I'm usually able to answer them."
Putting an end to the situation was one of the recommendations made in 2007 by the Local Government Reform Commission, which Daniels assembled.
Commission co-chairman and former Gov. Joe Kernan said the recommendation was driven in part by conflicts of interest -- real and potential -- that the commission saw in Indianapolis when it was writing its report.
That year, 11 police officers and firefighters ran for seats on the 29-member council. Four won office.
Some think conflicts can be avoided if members abstain from votes that involve personal interest. But the Star review in December found numerous instances in which members did not abstain -- and had no intention of ever abstaining.
And the commission was particularly concerned with just such an example in Indianapolis: Now-retired firefighter Monroe Gray, the former council president, cast the tie-breaking vote to shelve an ethics investigation into his business dealings and questions over whether he performed any real work in his Indianapolis Fire Department job.
Delaney said House Bill 1373 also would clean up potential problems for government supervisors.
In Indiana, city workers can OK their own raises
When Alfonso Salinas decided he and his fellow Streets Department foremen in Hammond deserved a $5,000 raise last year, he did more than just ask for it.
As a Hammond city councilman, he offered the motion amending the city budget, then voted to give himself the money.
Although other states have banned the practice, it's legal in Indiana for local government employees to serve on their own governing bodies -- and, as a result, vote on everything from department budgets to their own wages.
A review by The Indianapolis Star over the past month turned up numerous examples across the state of people voting on matters that either raised their own pay -- often as part of across-the-board salary increases for government employees -- or benefited them in some other way at taxpayer expense.
The situation is so rampant that Gov. Mitch Daniels is asking the Indiana General Assembly to bar local government employees from being elected to the governing body that oversees their job.
Letting local government employees become, essentially, their own boss is "a very bad idea," Daniels said.
"It is a direct conflict of interest," he said. "You ought to make a choice. If you're going to receive the money, you shouldn't be part of deciding how to spend the money."
The proposal initially was made last year by the Local Government Reform Commission that Daniels assembled, and it is among 20 recommendations the governor will ask the General Assembly to enact in the legislative session that begins Jan. 7.
Commission co-chairman and former Gov. Joe Kernan said the recommendation was driven in part by conflicts of interest -- real and potential -- that the commission saw on the Indianapolis City-County Council. Until recently, six of the 29 council members were police officers or firefighters.
The commission didn't have to look far for examples: Former state Sen. Louis Mahern, a commission member, has a nephew, Dane Mahern, who is a member of the City-County Council and an employment specialist with the city.
Among the public safety employees on the council is former President Monroe Gray. While the reform commission was collecting information for its report last year, Gray was facing questions over whether he performed any real work in his Indianapolis Fire Department job.
On Oct. 8, 2007, Gray cast the tie-breaking vote to shelve an ethics investigation into his business and Fire Department dealings -- a vote for which he was censured recently by the now Republican-controlled council.
It was a situation that could not have happened in many other states.
Ohio, Mississippi, Washington, Michigan and Georgia are among those states that bar or severely limit city and county employees' service in elected political offices.
Jim Grubiak, general counsel for the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia, was shocked to find out that any state would allow, for instance, police officers and firefighters to serve on the same councils that oversee their budgets and approve their contracts and pay.
"To me, it just seems so logical that you would not allow that," he said. "You can't supervise yourself."
In Indiana, though, it's legal, and common.
What happened in Hammond
George Janiec, co-director of Team Hammond, a taxpayers' watchdog group, was at the Hammond City Council meeting in September 2007 when Salinas, the Streets Department foreman, offered the motion to increase his and other foremen's salaries by $5,000 each.
Janiec said he was outraged by what he saw.
"It's unethical, it's immoral and it's business as usual in Lake County, and it's disgusting," he said. "It's reprehensible, and it's everything the governor has been talking about."
Minutes of the meeting show no substantive debate about why the raises were being requested -- and no member directly challenged Salinas on having a conflict of interest. The measure passed 6-2.
Salinas did not return repeated calls seeking comment.
Daniel C. Repay, Hammond council president, said that although the minutes don't reflect it, Salinas was approached by other council members and told "that from the smell test, you shouldn't be the one proposing that amendment."
But Repay -- who also is a Lake County employee -- didn't fault Salinas for voting for the raise.
"I wouldn't personally vote on it," he said, but added: "There are four other foremen. Maybe he's the best to know (that they deserve a raise). Maybe he shouldn't do it because he benefits from it, but do you penalize the other foremen? If you don't vote, that's in essence a 'no' vote."
Defending the practice
Many of the police, fire and other municipal workers who serve on elected boards argue that they are an asset to the councils because they bring insight on the needs and workings of city or county departments.
"I got into politics to make a change for the people," said New Albany Councilman Jack Messer, a police officer. "And there's things you have to vote on to protect the citizens that they're not aware of when it comes to the police department, one of them being police cars and police officers.
"If we don't have a decent salary for our police officers, we're not going to get good officers."
It's why, he said, he voted for buying five new cars, as well as a raise for police officers.
Greenfield Mayor Brad DeReamer doesn't buy it.
"That is their excuse," DeReamer said. "They should be imparting that knowledge (without being on the council). It's like, 'OK, I'm not going to share that knowledge, but if you elect me, I'll share it.' "
Potential conflicts of interest on such things as pay increases could be avoided by abstaining from a vote, but interviews with dozens of council members, commissioners and mayors found that few municipal employees who also are elected officials ever recuse themselves from such issues.
Derek Dieter, a 30-year veteran of the South Bend Police Department, has been on the South Bend Common Council for five years.
Dieter said he has never abstained from a vote. He was elected to represent his constituents, he said, and any pay increase or budget he votes on doesn't benefit him alone, but all employees of the department where he makes his living.
Sticky situations
Sitting out votes on pay and budgets isn't always a practical option.
In East Chicago, for instance, all nine Common Council members are government employees, and six are city employees. Council President Richard Medina, who also is assistant police chief, couldn't recall anyone abstaining, saying raises for city employees are across-the-board, and not for individual members on the council.
In some places, the situation can become awkward.
Grappling with budget cuts, Muncie Mayor Sharon McShurley recently laid off the Street Department superintendent.
That would be Sam Marshall, who also happens to be the council president. McShurley was dreading such a possibility and what it might mean for her at future council meetings.
She said she could just imagine what the reaction would be toward one of her proposals from someone she had just laid off.
Chris Hiatt, president of the government watchdog Citizens of Delaware County for Property Tax Repeal, applauded Daniels' proposal.
"They're employed by the very dollar they are administrating," he said. "I just think the whole thing -- even if well-intended . . . -- is just an inhibiting factor for them to make the very tough decisions relevant to their department."
He cites the budget still being hammered out in Muncie.
"The Fire Department gave little or nothing with regard to any cost reductions," Hiatt said, while the Police Department -- which, unlike the Fire Department, does not have an employee on the council -- saved about $300,000 by not filling some vacancies.
"Well, sure I'm suspicious," Hiatt said. "We've complained about it. But it's perfectly legal."
Tom Hanify, the president of the state firefighters union, said he supports all of Daniels' government reform ideas -- except this one.
He'll fight it, he said, unless the same rules apply to everyone. If public safety and municipal employees are barred from serving on the bodies that oversee them, the same rules should apply to state legislators, he said.
The legislature is rife with conflicts of interest, including several teachers and school district employees who are lawmakers and vote on school funding.
House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, is an employee of Ivy Tech Community College and one of at least eight lawmakers who get paychecks from state universities.
Lawmakers have always defended such conflicts as a necessary consequence of maintaining a part-time legislature that draws its members from all walks of life.
Bauer, who dismisses Daniels' proposal, said the same goes for municipal government.
"One of the reasons that we allowed those local employees to be part of this process," he said, "is that these are really part-time jobs, too."